Back Down To Earth
by greyslostwho
Summary: Harry finds his way back to London, and to Nikki, following the events of Greater Love. SPOILERS.
1. Chapter 1

**BACK DOWN TO EARTH**

**Harry finds his way back to London, and to Nikki, following the (horrific) events of Greater Love.**

**Disclaimer: As always, nothing belongs to me.**

In the end, it's two days after the funeral before she gets out of bed. That seems like a long time, and in the past, when she's ever heard of someone behaving like that, grief having that effect on a person, she's never understood, she's always thought she'd be stronger than that. But without Leo, and now they've finally put him in the ground beside Cassie and Theresa (almost as if that's a finality, an underlining), time seems to have lost all meaning; it in fact takes her about 24 hours to even notice she's been in bed for an abnormally long time.

When she finally gets up, showers and dresses, and gets herself in her car, she's halfway to the Lyell Centre before she even realises where she's going. She doesn't think anything of it, however, even then, because it's not like there's ever been anywhere else that would be her first place to go, once she was ready to go somewhere.

Jack's out the front, a cigarette between his fingers, and that doesn't seem strange to her, not right now, not after everything they've been through in the last couple of weeks. He shrugs slightly when he sees her, and when his eyes meet hers she sees the fatigue in them, and seconds later she reads the bags under his eyes and the new lines on his face as revealing he hasn't been sleeping, not at all, these last few days.

He doesn't say anything, but she's almost glad of that, because she doesn't think she could have come up with anything to say to him right now either, and they simply nod at each other as she goes past him into the building and he takes another long drag, another moment of his most extreme vice; it only happens in moments like this, moments of near enough hopelessness.

Clarissa looks up as she walks through the lab, and again, it's merely a nod in greeting, like everyone's run out of words right now, like there's no way of vocalising anything in these moments.

And she walks through into Leo's office (and she'll always think of it as Leo's office, no matter who they put there, and for how long they last) because that seems like the only possibility, the only place to go.

She hadn't, however, considered the possibility that there'd be a man sat at his desk. And not a replacement already, it's a man she knows all too well.

For a moment, she freezes.

* * *

Harry Cunningham is sat at the desk, staring almost blankly back up at her, his eyes full, tear tracks running unashamedly down his cheeks.

She sinks, wordlessly, into the chair opposite Leo's desk, her hands shaking, and a thousand things that she's been wanting to say to Harry for the past months catching in her throat and vanishing there, as if they were never anything of any importance, anyway. It's Harry that breaks the silence, in the end.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here for the funeral. I only heard yesterday, from someone at work."

She shakes her head slightly; unable to start thinking about Harry referring to 'someone at work' that wasn't her. Her or Leo. She shudders. That thought hurts. "It's alright." She says, and she's surprised at how steady her voice sounds; she's screaming inside.

"I came straight away." He breathes, and he leans on his hands on the table in front of him, and she almost doesn't want him to be in what should have been Leo's leaning space, "I didn't know what I could do… but I suppose I… I suppose I couldn't believe it was real…"

There's silence for a moment, because she's familiar with that. Every moment she's woken up in the last twelve days she's had a few seconds of thinking she might just be caught in the remnants of a dream, a nightmare, and none of this has happened. She needs to be fully awake before she's hit by the reality of the situation, and she supposes he needed to be back here, back home.

Suddenly, she's ready to tell someone about what happened, and despite everything he's done, despite his cruel exit, Harry Cunningham's been the person she's found it easiest to talk to for years. It only seems fitting.

"He knew." She starts, her voice catching a little on those words, "He knew, he was taking Daniel away…"

She tells him everything, simply and matter-of-fact, as if she's retelling the events of a case. Maybe that's the way she has to tell it, to detach herself enough to get the words out. It's not until she finishes telling the story and starts talking in a lot more familiarity that she starts to struggle, her voice starts to catch.

"He was so happy, Harry… he turned around the Lyell Centre, when he was worrying about that, and he met someone out in Afghanistan, a research scientist, and he'd asked her home with him… she was thinking about it, and I think she was going to come home, and I think…" she chokes completely then, and she looks into her lap, and when she looks up at him, there are tears running down her cheeks. "He… he so hadn't finished, not yet… there was so much more he was going to do… and he was going to keep being happy…"

She's properly crying now, and there's nothing he can think of to do in those moments but reach out and take her hand in his, squeezing it as tightly as he can, as if to reassure her that he's still there, he's still with her.

She freezes, then, and looks straight up at him, her eyes wide in shock as if she hadn't remembered what his flesh felt like, entwined with hers.

For a moment, there's a pause, and impasse, a stalemate; they both simply stare.

**Sorry if it's not that good, it's written in the early hours of the morning, in my ridiculously over-emotional state at what happened in Greater Love. There should be more up soon, but I'm quite busy with studying and that at uni, so the updates may be fairly slow!**

**A review's always greatly appreciated.**


	2. Chapter 2

**BACK DOWN TO EARTH**

**Harry finds his way back to London, and to Nikki, following the (horrific) events of Greater Love.**

**Disclaimer: As always, nothing belongs to me.**

**Chapter Two**

It's like everything she's been wishing she could say to him for the last months explodes out of her then, and she can't seem to contain it, control it. Despite everything that's happened, despite the terrible reason he's in front of her again, she can't seem to stop herself.

"I deserved more than that, Harry. You just left, ever so quickly… and then you didn't call, you didn't email, you didn't try to contact me! You had me believe, almost for the last decade, that I was more to you than a colleague, more important than that… hell; I thought we were best friends! You were the one person I thought about turning to in a problem, you were the one person that could cheer me up sometimes… ironically, you were the one person I trusted! I was entitled to so much more than you just upping and leaving like that, so quickly… I at least deserved you to try harder to contact me!"

"I spoke to Leo." Is all he responds with, and that reduces her to silence for a moment, because despite the diversion of the conversation, the aforementioned Leo is still the reason he's here again, he's still dead.

"What?" is all she can manage, sitting back in her chair, tugging her hand violently out of his.

He shakes his head slightly, looking down, almost as if in shame. "Leo and I talked a few times, and we emailed quite a bit… I… I needed a clean break from you, Nikki, I-"

She shakes her head at him, almost disbelieving. "You needed a clean break from me? What about what I needed? What about what I went through?" she stalls then, the enormity of the whole thing hitting her. "He never told me… why wouldn't he have told me?"

There's silence again then, because it's the first time since he died she's had a question she wanted to ask him that she's never going to have the answer to. A moment later, she looks up at Harry through her tears, and places her hand in his again, the rift between them due to his departure dissolving for a moment, Leo's death claiming the two of them briefly. She wraps her fingers round his tightly, as if she's afraid to let anything go right now for fear of losing it if she lets it out of her sight, out of her grasp.

"I want to ask him why… I want to ask him why he didn't tell me, Harry…" she sobs, "… and I'm never going to get to ask him…"

He doesn't have any words to help her… he doesn't have anything to help her in this situation, not really, but he gets up and walks round the table, pulling her into his arms roughly, letting her tears soak through the cotton of his shirt on his shoulder. In those few seconds, for a few moments, it's like everything that's happened in the last months, every betrayal's been erased. She cries into his shoulder, shaking with the immensity of the whole thing, forgetting, just momentarily, that he hadn't been by her side the whole time.

Because, in all honesty, if she's truthful to herself, in the last few weeks, she's been wishing she still had him beside her, she still had his shoulder to cry on; she still had that friendship to keep her standing.

The fact of the matter, if she's not denying anything at all, is that she's never stopped loving him, never stopped needing him.

Not yet.

* * *

She's not sure how long he's holding her for… she still hasn't really got any sense of time at the moment; she's not reached that point yet. She's not quite herself, because his words are still floating through her mind – _I needed a clean break from you – but she's perfectly content to let them lie at the moment. That's completely out of character, because there's something about it that doesn't make sense, something she should be trying to find the answer to… there was something in the way he'd said it, like she should somehow understand why he needed a clean break from her, but she can't seem to find the answer._

But it doesn't seem to matter right now, not when Leo's dead and the tears won't stop spilling out of her eyes. Right now, she hasn't got room for any other thought than the empty, hollow loss that's inside of her. She'd meant it, what she'd said only a few days before, about him being the closest thing to a father she'd ever had. He'd helped her into a place in the world, here, at the Lyell Centre, when she'd thought she couldn't find one, he'd shown her the way to finding some of the best friends she'll ever have, the man with his arms around her included. He'd picked her up when she was stumbling, he'd helped her out of numerous seemingly impossible situations, and he'd always been there.

She doesn't quite know how to comprehend yet, that if she goes back a year, the two men she thought she'd always be able to rely on, neither of them are by her side anymore, she's all by herself.

But one of those men has got his arms around her right now, and his face near enough against hers, and right now, that's enough.

* * *

After the immeasurable amount of time in each other's arms has passed, they look at each other, and that's when Nikki stops, for the first time since Leo died, and thinks about how it might be affecting other people, how they might be feeling almost consumed in grief, the way she is. Because there are tears running down Harry's face as well, and his eyes are as sunken and as red as hers… She decides it's time to let him speak, and she supposes he's still able to read her without her saying anything, because he starts talking.

"Life's short, isn't it?" he begins, his voice hoarse, a catch in his throat, and there's something she's not sure she can read in his eyes. "It's telling me that, if nothing else… you shouldn't ever wait for something, or give up on something, because it could all be over tomorrow, and you'll regret never doing it…"

She cocks her head to one side, as looking at him from a different angle would put some meaning behind those words. He sighs again, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Nikki… I'm, I'm just… really sorry…"

She shakes her head at him slightly, and then, on a spur of the moment, leans her forehead against his lightly, closing her eyes.

"Leo was really mad at me…" he continues, and it makes her chuckle silently, "…until his last email he kept telling me that I hadn't treated either of you right, I shouldn't have left like I did, that it wasn't too late to head back, apologise, straighten things out…"  
"It's still not too late." She breathes, and she's not even sure she intended to say it out loud… He blinks at her for moments, as if he's trying to make sense of it. He decides to take it as barely anything, he decides to take it as an admission that he can still apologise, she'll still forgive him, not anything more. He moves away, suddenly and without much warning, and even to himself he's lost the right to think anything she says means anything more.

"I'm sorry…" he reiterates, closing his own eyes now, hardly able to form any other words. "I'm so… you did deserve more than that… you're… you're Nikki…"

What does that even mean, _you're Nikki? _ As if that should explain why everything had happened the way it had, everything he'd done… why she'd been different to other people, different to Leo. But it doesn't. She can't make any sense of it, and right now, she's not sure she has the energy to care.

"I was going to be alright…" she says, pulling back, and she's not sure even as she says it if it's true, if it's ever been true. She's spent the last months quite honestly having no idea when Harry's absence is going to stop hurting.

He looks a little shocked, but then he nods slowly, as if admitting to himself that she could survive without him. Right now, however, he's not sure what he was thinking, whether he can survive without her.

He takes a step back to her then, and holds her a few feet from him, looking her in the eyes, and right now, she can read everything in his. Loss, weariness, grief, and is that regret?

**More will be up soon, thank you for all your feedback!**


	3. Chapter 3

**BACK DOWN TO EARTH**

**Harry finds his way back to London, and to Nikki, following the (horrific) events of Greater Love.**

**Disclaimer: As always, nothing belongs to me.**

**Sorry for however long this has taken, 's doing something strange and refusing for random and immeasurable lengths of time to upload chapters!**

**Chapter Three**

"What I got out of it, more than anything… was that you should never let something go, without even giving it a try… I was thinking about life being short and all that, and looking back on things and being disappointed in the way they'd turned out… what had never happened… and all I could think about was how I should never have left you, Nikki…" he shakes his head slightly, tears shining in his eyes again, "…and he was telling me that, up until the last thing he said to me…"

She doesn't know what to say to that, because she could have told him from the day he told her he was leaving that he shouldn't be going, she's a little disappointed if she's honest with herself that he hasn't felt it from the word go, a physical pain that should have told him not to go as he walked away from her and Leo at the airport… but she supposes you can get caught up in excitement, new challenges, and he'd have had so much preparation, so much to occupy himself in getting ready for the move, she supposes it took him longer to realise the enormity of what he was doing, what he was walking away from, what he was leaving.

She doesn't know why she says what she says next, for years to come she'll blame the grief, the fact that she thinks she might still be half asleep from her seemingly never-ending dozing this last day, but she sounds sensible, she sounds sure, like she's always intended to say this.

"He thought you and I would be together… eventually… I asked him, in Budapest, when I thought you were dead… and he thought we'd get there in the end…"

He doesn't react the way she thought he would, either, though she's not really sure what she was expecting. There's a long pause, a long silence, and he sounds almost nervous when his voice finally comes out. "You asked him?"

She laughs a little then, bitter, tired, and she doesn't think she's ever felt so old. If Leo's death has taught her anything, it's that there's something to be said for honesty, something to be said for wanting to say what you want to say, because if you leave it you might never get the chance to say it, the chance you've been waiting for.

She shakes her head, and even she's not sure if it's at herself or at him, "I guess I thought so too… I guess I thought we'd get there eventually…" she laughs again, "… it's a strange one, realisation, when you think someone's gone for ever… there's so much that you wanted to say, so much that you wanted to do…" her voice catches then, and the tears start spilling out of her eyes, because the realisation's just hit her that that thinking applies directly to Leo now, and although there was never anything as big and unresolved as she felt there would have been between her and Harry, she hadn't thanked him enough, hell… she was thinking at the christening the other week that when she had a child, she'd want Leo to be her child's godparent… there was so much in her life she'd wanted Leo to see, so much she'd wanted his approval of, in a way; she valued his honest opinion of something more than anyone else's, she thinks.

Harry pulls her tighter for a few moments, knowing, without either of them saying anything, where her thought process has gone, how she's back to that big hollow empty hole in her mind that's the loss of Leo.

"He knew how much he meant to you…" Harry whispers, and he'll always astound you, how he knows exactly what to say, exactly what you need, when you haven't given him anything to work with. "You don't need to worry about that…"

He's got her tightly now, like he doesn't want to let go of her either, and she's not complaining, but she wishes he'd have some sort of reaction to what she's just said… because although Leo used to say everyone else that'd ever met the two of them thought they either were or would be together at some point, she's never heard Harry say it. Ever.

He holds her at arm's length again, and she doesn't think she's ever heard him any less confident, she doesn't think she's ever seen him look quite like that.

"He told me…" he gives a little chuckle, "He told me, and I quote, that I was a 'bloody stupid idiot' to let you get away… to have never made anything happen between us… and he said… he said you were just waiting for me to do something, which I never did, and then I upped and left and threw it all away…" she's about to respond, but he puts a finger up to her lips. "Let me say this, Nikki, because I've waiting to say it for almost a decade, and I don't think you'll ever get me going again… hell, I'm not even sure why I'm saying it now… The thing is, I didn't say anything because I thought you didn't want me to say anything, and then when the offer came up to leave, I thought maybe it was time I should… I couldn't just sit here and wish for things that I was certain were never going to happen… and so I left… and I did that in the wrong way, I did it all wrong… and you did deserve more than that, Nikki, you did, you do mean more to me than that… but I think you made me a bit crazy, and I just had it in my head that leaving was the best way to draw a line underneath it all…" he shakes his head slightly, as if at himself. "I'm not asking for your forgiveness, and I'm not asking you for anything, because I realise what I did was unforgivable, I realise what I did drove a wedge between us that I'll never be able to take out… I'd just like you to listen to me, can you do that?"

She nods, her eyes wide and stunned, honestly having no idea what he's going to say next.

"Leo… Leo's death, which is ridiculous, because he was trying to tell me every time he spoke to me… it made me realise that I don't want to be in New York, I don't want to be away from home, I don't want to completely throw this life away… I'm not asking for anything… but I'm going to come back… and if you don't want me to apply for the professorship position at the Lyell Centre I get that, and I won't… I'll leave that ball in your court, if you want to get rid of me completely I'll back out gracefully… I'll look for another job, somewhere else, at least in this country, closer to home… I just… I'm coming back, Nikki, I'm done running away from things… I should have realised, as a friend, you deserved more than that, I shouldn't have gotten wrapped up in my own feelings, I should have thought about yours as well…" he shakes his head slightly, "I should have listened to Leo…"

**Hope you like, reviews are always appreciated! **

**Might be a couple of days before you get another update, I'm going to a funeral tomorrow, and then have to come home and catch up on the 4 lectures that I'm missing, so I'll be up to my eyeballs in work, and I cannot work on this, or I will just miserably fail my degree!**


	4. Chapter 4

**BACK DOWN TO EARTH**

**Harry finds his way back to London, and to Nikki, following the (horrific) events of Greater Love.**

**Disclaimer: As always, nothing belongs to me.**

**Sorry it's been a while, sorry it's short, feedback's always greatly appreciated.**

**Chapter Four**

She doesn't know what to say, where to begin. They're staring at each other for long moments, almost as if neither of them knows what to say next. When Nikki finally speaks, she doesn't quite sound like herself… hell, she doesn't quite feel like herself, she's over-rationalising and merely thinking about the logistics of it all. She's not going to let herself think about what Harry's just said, about coming back… she's been let down too many times, there's been too much going wrong in her life; especially going wrong in the last weeks; she's far beyond building herself up to only get let down again. The professorship here is the only thing that comes to mind, because somehow the only way that she can start to begin to see any sort of justice in all the things that have been happening in the last weeks is if she steps into Leo's shoes, takes that position, and they've as good as offered it to her. And without thinking about the brilliance of Harry stepping back into a vacancy here, however horribly created, there's something _not right _about Harry being able to follow in Leo's footsteps, because he left. At the end of the day, he abandoned them both.

"No." is all that comes out of her mouth in the end, and it sounds detached, cold, a different person. "I'm taking the professorship. I've already spoken to the authorities about it. It's not for you anymore." Harry looks as if he's about to say something, as if he was preparing a thanks for her agreement, and his mouth opens and closes on nothing at all, like she's almost winded him with the simple, shock reply. He steps back from her, dropping all contact with her as if she's suddenly become hot to the touch, and it's a reflex to pull his hands away. He walks round the desk, silently, and starts putting his coat on.

"I really am sorry." He whispers as he puts his scarf around his neck, sounding as if he was fighting hard not to burst into tears. "I'm so sorry I ruined all of this, Nikki, I…" he gives a little smile, "I guess I deserve it, don't I? You won't hear from me again, I'll disappear…"

Before she knows it, he's walking towards the door, and he's about the leave her life again, and this time she supposes he won't ever come back, there's nothing that's going to bring them together again… for God's sake, Leo can't die again and drag Harry back, can he? That's the first time it crosses her mind that there's something unfair in how Harry found out… she should have bitten the bullet and rung him, let him know about the funeral… maybe he's not the only person to blame in this scenario…

"I'm sorry." She says then, because it's the only thing she has to say. He spins, almost incredulous, as if to check what he's hearing is right. He doesn't say anything, but pauses, staring at her, and she supposes that's an invitation to continue.

"I should have rung you… I shouldn't left you not knowing… I… that was wrong of me…"

She's still not getting anything from his end; he looks completely bewildered about this whole situation. She continues, "I didn't want to speak to you… part of me was terrified at what I would do… I'm broken enough as it is, and I'll always remember what you did to me… I was scared to talk to you again, as I hadn't since you left, and I didn't think talking to the man who broke my heart needed to be added to everything that happened with Leo and I-"

"I broke your heart?" he asks, and she realises what she said, and at any other point in her life she would have been mortified, she would have been horrified at what she'd mistakenly done. But right now Leo's dead, and that's far worse than anything she could ever possibly say, and her and Harry… she's been resigned to her and Harry being over for months now, they were the big thing in her life that was going to be wonderful when it happened; the big thing in her life that never did. She smiled through her tears slightly, shaking her head, half at the two of them, always missing, half at herself.

"You broke my heart."

**Again, sorry it's been so long in coming, hope you like! There should be at least one more chapter up this weekend!**


	5. Chapter 5

**BACK DOWN TO EARTH**

**Harry finds his way back to London, and to Nikki, following the (horrific) events of Greater Love.**

**Disclaimer: As always, nothing belongs to me.**

**Chapter Five**

Nikki looks down, and there's suddenly something incredibly interesting happening on the floor, she won't meet his eyes. There's silence, both of them considering what's just been said, and in ways that are not so different. They're both, in those moments, trying to wrap their heads around the concept of Harry holding that much power over Nikki's heart… Harry because he'd always thought his were unrequited feelings, he was alone in feeling that way about her, and Nikki because although she'd known he'd done a lot of damage to her, he'd caused her a lot of pain, she hadn't appreciated quite how huge it was… she hasn't allowed herself to think quite the scale of the ruination his departure had brought on her.

"I'm sorry." He breathes, barely making a sound, and he shakes his head at himself almost instantly, because that seems so inefficient, given the circumstances. "If I'd have known-" he starts and stops himself again, unable to wrap into words what he wants to say. In the end he crouches beside her again, tilting her chin with his left hand, forcing her eyes to meet his. He starts then, and this time he won't stop, he's telling himself he just needs to keep saying something that makes some vague kind of sense, he needs to keep talking. For in the end, where has keeping silent all these years got them?

"I… I thought everything I ever felt was just me, Nikki…" he laughs a little, bitterly, "…and I've been feeling something for a long time… and in the end, I figured I needed to go, I needed a clean break, I-"

"You never said anything to me, though, did you?" there are still tears running down her cheeks, but he can somehow read something different, some other kind of grief in them, "If you'd just… suggested… there was something there… You couldn't count the number of times I was going to say something to you… it was always at the last minute when I decided there was too much between us I might ruin… we'd never be the same friends… I guess we were both as bad as one another…" she laughs a little, leaning into his hand ever-so-slightly, so much so he's not sure if he's imagining it.

He rests his forehead against hers, then, and as he watches her eyelids close, closes his own. They pause for a moment, both of them completely in unchartered territory now, and given the recent events, both Leo's death and Harry's slightly less recent departure, they both have more fear than they used to, they're both more wary. It's a few minutes before Harry smiles a little.

"What would Leo think of this?"

Nikki smiles slightly, thinking of how their friend would have shaken his head incessantly at the ridiculousness of the pair of them, maybe made some comment he'd expected a laugh from, and then turned away, leaving them to it.

"I don't think he'd have been all that surprised." She whispers, and there's something in her voice that opens his eyes, but hers are still firmly closed, as if she doesn't want to open them, doesn't want to wake up from her dream, "I think he knew a whole lot more than we ever gave him credit for… I think he knew a whole lot more than we ever realised ourselves…" A tear escapes from under her eyelid, but she keeps talking. "There's so much I should… we both should have listened to him about… there's so much he was still going to teach me… he was nice like that, he'd let me feel independent, he'd let me mess everything up all by myself, but he'd be there to pick up the pieces in the end… he was so much more my father than my father ever was…"

Harry sighs, taking a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her, revelling in the moment; he's still not convinced that it's not going to be cruelly ripped away from him soon.

"It's strange, something like this… you realise how much you were planning on talking about _one day, _how much you were planning on saying that you never got round to…" She opens her eyes then, as if she's not sure whether she's supposed to be reading something further into this or not.

"Yes?" is all she responds with, and he has a little smile, because despite everything, despite his betrayal, despite their time apart, they can both still read things unsaid in what the other one's saying, they can both still get so much more meaning out of it than anyone else could. If he thought about it too hard, there'd been something to say about that… something about knowing each other too well to be just friendship…

"If I died tomorrow, or if you died tomorrow, there'd be so much I'd regret, there'd be so many more of these things I haven't said… leaving, Nikki, that was wrong, that was cruel, and all of this forgotten, you were too good a friend, you didn't deserve that… so I'm not expecting any kind of forgiveness, I'm not expecting to get anything from it anymore, I've done all this far too wrong…" he takes a deep breath then, taking her face in his hands and locking her eyes with his. "In the interest of not regretting failing to ever say something, and because Leo's up there right now cheering because I've finally gotten round to it… I love you, Nikki, I always have."

**Sorry for the slightly cruel cliffhanger(ish) ending, I think there's only going to be one more chapter, and I'll get it to you as soon as I can… and then I'll do some work and concentrate on not failing **


	6. Chapter 6

**BACK DOWN TO EARTH**

**Harry finds his way back to London, and to Nikki, following the (horrific) events of Greater Love.**

**Disclaimer: As always, nothing belongs to me.**

**The final chapter, then… and special thanks goes out to KiwiSWFan, for being my star reviewer, and giving me lovely feedback!**

**Chapter Six**

She's not sure she's really heard what she just heard… because he left her, he disappeared, and she couldn't possibly be hearing this. She's gone through the last eight years of her life, thinking, entirely in private, about how she feels about him; to start off with, how there'd maybe be something there one day, but as the years passed and nothing changed, it seemed like an even more distant possibility. And then he left, and then it wasn't a possibility anymore, it was an impossible dream.

But apparently he's here right now, and he's always loved her. That doesn't quite make sense, but if there's anything the last grieving weeks have taught her, it's to seize the moment, to never look back. For a few seconds, she's thinking of what she could say, some sort of the reciprocation to that, something to somehow explain that it's what she's been waiting to hear for nearly a decade, and she wants to say the exact same thing back, but nothing seems to want to come out.

So she kisses him.

* * *

Twice before, their lips have touched. Once, years and years ago, he'd been trying to shut her up, in a pub, in the rain, and the second time it had possibly been the whole situation that had been controlling Nikki, more so that her own decisions. She tastes a thousand times better than he remembers, and there's something so much more arousing about it having been her individual decision, there is nothing else in the way. Before he even has time to think, her arms are wrapping around his neck, and her tongue's dancing against his, with a slight desperation, as if she still thinks he might disappear any moment.

And he was such an idiot, an unbelievable fool, disappearing in the first place, leaving this behind, and he can see Leo right now looking at them disapprovingly, due to how long this has taken the pair of them, how many times they've missed and broken hearts before they've got here, but he wouldn't be able to hide his smile. Harry supposes it was something Leo always thought was going to happen, at some point.

She pulls back then, resting her forehead against his, catching her breath. There's a smile on her face, and that's strange, because she hasn't smiled since she lost Leo, she wasn't sure she even remembered how… but Harry, Harry in her arms, that was always going to make her smile.

That's when her heart starts plummeting in her chest at the thought of Harry leaving again, this only being a temporary thing, and she pulls back a little further, turning ethereally pale.

"Harry…" she breathes, as if it's some sort of sacred silence she doesn't really want to break, "I love you too, I've always loved you too, so if you're going to leave again, if you're going to disappear and not look back… the state I'm in right now, losing Leo, I don't think I'll handle it… I don't think I'll cope at all, so if you're going to go you need to do it right now…"

He shakes his head at her, and there's something she reads in his eyes, he seems to be finding her ridiculous.

"I'm not." He whispers, and pulls her back closer to him, "I… I think you're going to have to ask me to leave, Nikki, because I don't think I'm ever going to…" Because if losing Leo meant anything, it meant to never wait for something you might not have time for. It meant never to fear anything that was going to make you happy, because it might only last a few minutes… "I'll have to work a couple more weeks in New York, I'll give my notice as soon as I get back, and then I'll move back over here… and you're taking this job, so we'll figure something out, I shouldn't think I'll have too much trouble finding something, even if it's temp work for a while, I-"

"You really mean this?" she cuts him off, her voice shaking slightly, unbelieving how suddenly and how perfectly something could be happening, when she'd suffered the greatest loss of her life in the last weeks…

He answers her with a kiss, small and gentle, and runs his hand down her face. "I really mean this," he laughs a little, "Leo would be shaking his head at us right now…"

She smiles, "I think… I think he had the advantage we didn't… I think however well we tried to hide it, I think he knew both of us felt the same way… where we went on soldiering through thinking we were on our own…"

"You're not on your own anymore…" he starts, and then he's kissing her again, and everything seems to be working out right in this second, and then it all builds up, and it's too much that doesn't make any sense, and she bursts into tears again, pulling back, her whole body shaking with sobs.

"What-"

She looks at him through the tears; talks quietly and brokenly through the sobs, "Leo's dead, Harry. Leo's dead, and Leo's never coming back… he was so happy, back then, I think the first time since he left Janet… and you're back and you love me, which is something I could never have imagined… but he's dead, Harry… he knew what he was doing, he gave himself up for everyone else there… it's just so unfair that you could be back here making me happy again… and he's dead…"

He doesn't have any words, because there aren't any words to put right to the cruel loss of Leo, but he puts her head on his shoulder, lets her cry it all out, and sheds a few of his own. They've both lost something irreplaceable and infinitely precious from their lives, and he doesn't know that they'll ever be quite the same again. However, he thinks as he runs his hands through her hair, Leo would've been unbelievably cross with the pair of them if they didn't at least allow themselves to try and be happy…

He smiles a little then as her tears soak through the material of his shirt on his shoulder, because he supposes he'll always be her shoulder to cry on now.

* * *

Jack and Clarissa are only filing paperwork, in a companionable and grieving silence, when Nikki comes out of the office that was once Leo's, her hand in a tall, dark-haired man's. Both their eyes are red from crying, but there's something else there as well, something that can't quite be read. Jack smiles slightly at Nikki and stands up, holding a hand out to the other man.

"This is Clarissa," he gestures to his friend, "…I'm Jack Hodgson, I'm the forensic scientist here now…"

Harry shakes Jack's hand, not having the words yet, but knowing later, in private, he'll have lots of thanks to give Jack for taking care of Nikki, giving her a friend in the last months when he's been absent.

"This is Harry…" Nikki starts, "…he's… he's…"

"I'm hers." Is all Harry responds, giving them both a nod and a smile.

Nikki shakes her head at him a little, and gives his hand a tiny squeeze, unnoticed by anyone else. "He's mine."

_And someplace else, if he's watching, Leo smiles._

**That's a wrap! Thank you so much for all your feedback, you've all been the lovely reviewers you always are! Hope you liked all of it, and the ending was good enough for you. One last review wouldn't go amiss.**


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